Everything is drawn out. Everything is I didn't say that even though it was clearly implied with your comment. Now we can go down the bad faith argument and you can't fully prove that and if you feel like going that way fine. I mean it got Wazz to gave up against you out of pointlessness

What's even more interesting about calling it bad faith is that you're asking for clarification-- if you don't even understand what I'm saying how could you know it's in bad faith?

What I'm saying is that conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists are traditionally thought of as being distrusting of government, authority, and official sources.

However, for the people who wouldn't consider themselves conspiracy people, they are still capable of buying into conspiracy theories as long as those theories are coming from the sorts of places they trust, and that the Trump/Russia stuff is a good example of this.

I mean nothing I said there is too complicated. Just because you didn't understand it doesn't make it bad faith. Just stick to the words I say and the meaning conveyed in those actual words in we'll be fine. If I start saying "no that's not what I meant" even though the meaning of my words clearly conveys whatever you were thinking, then you can start accusing me of arguing in bad faith

The video I linked, which explores the work of members of the Frankfurt School, discusses in depth the sorts of person who would be most likely to fall into fascism. He's my favourite youtuber and I've not found anyone whose politics I agree with as much as him. I'm happy to do an exchange system whereby you watch that ~30 minute vid and I watch a ~30 minute vid of your choosing, or something.

I'll watch it here right after I take a shower and give you my thoughts. No need for any exchange it's short enough and probably more stimulating than watching poker on YouTube.

I'll officially apologise - when someone compares anything to the holocaust, I tend to get a bit sensitive, particularly when these comparisons have been flying around nonstop the last couple of years. The problem with accusations of bad faith, gaslighting, virtue signalling and dog whistles is they can never really be proven, and they're easy to toss around when you don't like what the other person has to say. I don't know that you weren't dog whistling, and I certainly couldn't prove it by going through your posts. You're way too clever for that. So instead I'll just withdraw all my accusations and apologise for having made them in the first place. Sorry. Sometimes I see ghosts where none lie.

Which rights were stepped all over?

I am not happy with the way Covid was handled by political leaders and I don't think there should have been any forced shutdowns of businesses. But I see no similarities to mass murder or slavery.

Apology accepted and no worries, although it's still hard to defend myself against accusations of dog whistling when I'm not told which statements are the alleged whistles. I can certainly say that I have no ill-will towards any group of people on the basis of immutable characteristics and that nothing I've ever said either in this forum or elsewhere would ever give that impression.

I can appreciate how the Holocaust can be a sensitive subject but it wasn't my intention to single it out-- it could have been any genocide-- Rwanda, Armenia, the Uighurs in China etc.

right to travel. americans have a right to travel so we can set up rebellions.

This is where I'll get accused of arguing in bad faith or something, but again-- reading comprehension-- I did not claim that rights were stepped all over (although they were and we can still talk about them)-- but what I claimed was that it showed which people were comfortable doing so.

I don't think it is a failure in reading complications to make inferences, especially when reading posts by someone who is always deliberately sketchy with his points so he can have "plausible deniability".

If that's not what you meant, then please stop beating around the bush and tell us exactly what you think. Exactly which people showed in 2020 that they would be fine with Nazis and slavery, and how do you believe they showed it?

The only travel I know of that was shut down was between countries, and the US government only prevented people from coming into the country, not leaving it (AFAIK anyway). Is that what you mean? Where were Americans prohibited from travelling by the US government? I moved from one state to another during early lockdown, certainly no one tried to prevent me from doing that.

You weren’t supposed to go outside in San Francisco. You could get a ticket for for traveling unless you were an essential worker

Ok I watched the video. I'm familiar with Adorno's work as it was covered in a personality theory textbook I read once. It was always my impression that Adorno's theories there were fairly dated and haven't stood up to further empirical scrutiny and he just glosses over that right at the end of the video.

Given that I was already familiar with Adorno, I can't really say that I got anything out of the video.

Do you have an example of me being sketchy with my points or are you just parroting something you heard Trolly say once?

The people who showed this are the people who had no problems pushing for a segregated society based on vaccine status, obviously.

Or the cops who arrested people for taking their children to parks, or to a neighbor's for a play date, or for being on the beach alone, and all the people who cheerlead and supported that.

This people showed that they are willing to go along with whatever as long as authority tells them they should.

Huh, here in Portland everyone was going outside all the time. Even when big gatherings were supposedly prohibited, nothing was done about the large political protest gatherings.

You've been sketchy in this thread just in the last day. You imply something but then chide people for reading comprehension when they make the only possible inference. I certainly don't take anything that Trolly says seriously, if you actually paid attention to things you would certainly know that.

I wasn't following this forum in 2020, but I never heard anyone pushing for a segregated society. I wasn't fond of the restrictions placed on some businesses to require vaccines for patrons, but it was better than them being completely closed. Never heard of anyone being arrested for being alone outside, but I will trust you that it happened somewhere. I certainly never heard anyone support something ridiculous like that.

I do think the right to free assembly was unconstitutionally restricted in 2020, and I complained about that all the time, but I don't think those who supported the measures are more likely to go along with slavery or Nazis. They supported infringement of liberty for health reasons, but not only for one oppressed minority group.

Yeah I mean this is as close to a smoking gun as we'll. It makes no logical sense to suggest that some were willing to step over the rights of others without making the implicit claim that those rights were actually stepped on, unless the specific situation arose where a bunch of people were on the verge of stepping over rights but pulled it back and it was commonly known as being such a situation. Just because you didn't say the exact words 'I claim that rights were stepped over' doesn't mean you can't even ask a question that makes a claim implicit.

As it happens I do believe that rights were stepped over, but it was done with the greater rights of vulnerable people not to be exposed, and the rights of doctors and nurses and servicepeople all over the workplace not to have to risk their lives to a greater extent than they already do. In times of great need, we sometimes have to make compromises. In london in the blitz in world two, we had blackouts, which certainly stepped over peoples' rights to live their lives as normally as they could given the circumstances, but it was done with community in mind.

Busted for being too literal.

I'm hesitant to bump the troll thread, but it's hard to let this post go...

To draw a line from this to "I feel like the events of 2020 taught us pretty well who would be going along with the Holocaust/slavery and other assorted societal evils. Suffice to say, your team didn't fare too well." is pretty ****ing pathetic.

But sadly, it doesn't really surprise me coming from a conspiracy theorist mindset, having seen plenty of it for the last couple of years with people who have tied "compliance" to all sorts of other nonsense. There's a Great Reset, Covid was just about getting people to comply, blah blah blah. I will say, though, it's the first time I've seen anyone make this connection, probably because it's a leap too far even for many conspiracy theorists - that there's somehow no morality to this. If you believed in policies around vaccination status, that you would also go along with killing people based on their race just because the authorities told you to and, well, you agreed with vaccine policies because the authorities told you to so of course you'd be good with killing Jews as well.

And I have no interest in a "show me where I said X" game on this, as I'm not claiming any of these words as literal aside from the actual quotes. The inference is clear, and IMO, disgusting.

This reads like some of the deranged posting that I was dealing with at the day. No real clue how you're making some of the leaps you're making so I'll just let it go.

There's no way you're that in the know about what conspiracy theories are out there and don't see the obvious inferences we're going to make when you say some of the things you say.

I guarantee you that at least 90% of people reading your post would make the same "leaps". This is just making explicit what you have clearly implied. You're being dishonest if you say that you didn't mean all of this.

Ok but what are the inferences?

I've said repeatedly that 2020 shows the sort of people who would go along with something because they were told to go along with it. I'm certainly not backing down from that statement.

What else is there? And what does my knowledge of conspiracy theories have to do with any of this?

What are the leaps?

No, not "with something". With the Holocaust, and slavery. "I feel like the events of 2020 taught us pretty well who would be going along with the Holocaust/slavery and other assorted societal evils. Suffice to say, your team didn't fare too well."

So I guess you're right, no inference at all, you just outright said it and are standing by it. As I said, disgusting.